Survival Of The Fittest

Fiyori was about to argue that animals and plants totally counted as full points when - suddenly and surprisingly to boot - a pair of arms grasped around Ty. Her eyebrow rose at first, some flash of curiousity coming up in her mind. It turned outto be Ty's girlfriend, though. He probably wouldn't flip her over the table, Fiyori guessed.

Bernadette - or Bee sometimes - greeted Fiyori quickly, the latter shooting a short wave with her hands to Bee.

"You know, at least I have never assaulted anybody as a greeting."

Fiyori directed her deadpan comment at Ty, although she still looked at Bee. The two weren't particular close, no? It was a shame though, Fiyori kinda digged Bee. Could see why Ty and Bee were involved with each other. A bit strange of a relationship on paper but kinda cute too. But yes, Fiyori had to do more stuff with her at some point in the vague future.

A few months ago she would have done everything to make sure that no one, least of all someone like Tyler, saw the moment that her green eyes tighten at the corners. Now, she added another more meaningful squeeze of their joined hands, and did her best to ignore the residual pain.

"Just the usual." A quick dip downwards to press a kiss to his forehead. A further reassurance.  

Then she gathered everything beneath the surface to smile sweetly at Fiyori, the picture of innocence. "He likes it, I think. Or he likes me. One of the two." It appeared that Tyler's friend had not minded the impromptu diversion of hug-tackling, so that added to the reasons to breathe slowly, take care and not let her see. No point ruining a perfectly lovely discussion after all. "Before I happily interrupted, you were talking about cats?"

Something had happened that took her away from lunch. From the tension he was picking up in her grip, she was probably hurting again, but not so bad that she needed to bail. She was fighting through it, and he could support that. He wouldn't press her about it unless things took a dark turn. For now, he was just glad to have her there.

"Somethin' like that, yeah, " he said, regarding Fiyori with a cocked eyebrow. "Actually, you came along at the perfect time, seems we need a rulin' on the field. You get full responsible, grown-up points for bein' nice to animals n' plants like they're people?"

Ty settled back against the chair and rubbed Bernadette's hands gently as he gave the girls a grin. "See, I think it shouldn't count full measure. Otherwise, 'tween Chaplin and the garden I'd be the most responsible adult in the room, and that's just not right."

With the corner of Alessio's eyes he could see Ty and Bee. They were cute together, kissing, cuddling. Having a girlfriend sure was something that made life better. Al had not, which sucked.

Ty then said something about Chaplin and a garden. It was confusing, presumably a private conversation. Or they were talking about Chaplin movies, but Al had not seen one of them.

It was probably bothering for them for Al to eavesdrop. Well, it wasn't exactly eavesdropping, but...well it kinda was. Better not disturb them. Alessio took his bag and stood up.

Maybe he should say "See you" or something like that? But they were conversing with each other. It'd only interrupt them in talking with each other. A smile would be enough.

Smilingly to the 12th graders, he walked towards the door of the library.

And so he left, pretending to know where to go.

((Alessio Rigano, continued in Rays on Pinion))

And for a moment, Fiyori felt strange. Bee smiled at Fiyori, and if one were to ask her on her feelings about this scene, she'd say that she felt gladness or joy or something along these lines. However, there was something off, but Fiyori could not place her finger on what exactly felt so.

Either way, Ty brought the most important question of the validity of her adult points up again, which was distraction enough. Fiyori decided that it had to be the burrito in her body which was mucking up - there was frankly more important stuff to concentrate on right that moment.

"Sure, you're the most adult adult I know, Ty - surely Chaplin's bound to agree with me."

A chair moved off to the left, distracting Bernadette enough that whilst she was still listening to the conversation going on beside her, she had a moment to smile back at Alessio as he left the library. There was no reason not to be friendly after all, and he had been nice to enough to smile their way. Bernadette dragged her attention back to the conversation at hand, deliberately not catching his eye as she pulled a hand free to spin around his chair to sit on the table beside him, one hand still grasping his.

"Plants can't really reciprocate that niceness, so I think animals count." This angle not only took some of the strain off her body, but meant that she could now see Fiyori and Tyler at the same time without craning her neck over or around the latter.

"And you don't have to worry Taz. No one in this room," at that moment she glanced at Fiyori with a brief smile, "well, no one sensible is going to mistake you for being a responsible adult. Chaplin could, and will, be forgiven on account of being adorable." Legs swinging gently in tandem and smiling gleefully, it could be easy to assume that Bernadette probably did not mean that as an insult. "And as an impartial party with absolutely no subjectivity in the matter, my ruling can't be contested. So there."

Were they agreeing, or disagreeing? He wasn't sure he could keep the sides straight at this point, but he was pretty sure he lost somewhere in there. He gave a defeated chuckle as he glanced between the two girls. It was strange how comfortable things had become, over the last few months. Not too long ago he'd have been doing anything he could to stay the hell away from anybody and everybody if he had a free period at lunch, or maybe hanging with folks from the team if he was feeling social. Not that he was complaining about the change, mind.

Ty shook his head at Bee as he listened to her. "Hey now, don't let him catch ya callin' him adorable. You'll spoil his fragile ego, y'know?" With a nod to Fiyori, he continued, "Suppose you take this round, then. 'Course, wouldn't wanna make a habit of rackin' up points like that. Might end up an uptight model citizen, like me."

Oh, hey! No one sensible? Fiyori would argue that she had plenty of that stuff, but that... actually, yeah. Maybe being sensible was not her greatest asset. She gave Bee a half-smile back. If she was another person Fiyori would've probably and already brought out the snark missiles because you just couldn't have this shit fly. But Bee was fine, so Fiyori could take the comment in good jest.

Ty in the meanwhile mentioned that calling Chaplin adorable would probably spoil his fragile ego. Fiyori let out a small chuckle at that. Yeah, she remembered the first time she met the cat. Ty was probably shocked at how high Fiyori's pitch could raise and what incredibly cutesy names she wanted to give Chaplin. She couldn't help it, man.

Anyway, Ty finally acknowledged that waving at a cat is totally worth one adult point.

"Ah, don't worry, won't happen," she said to Ty's remark of becoming such a model citizen such as him. "Anyway..."

Fiyori glanced at the book in front of Ty.

"I interrupted you during your reading time, no? What's that about?"

Bernadette managed to bite her tongue at the insinuation that Tyler counted as an uptight model citizen - in some ways, he wasn't wrong – stemming her usual teasing in a bid to let an actual conversation take place between them all.  But she did wonder if one very intense look could convey all the incredulity that she made no effort at all to conceal, glancing up to the clock to make it look like she was not on the tip of blurting out words that would not make one ounce of sense.

Glancing back down at the book, Bernadette traced her free hand's fingertips across the edge of the page closest to her, indicating that same interest in it without wasting breath. Some of the words were familiar; probably the same as something she had read over his shoulder once or twice. Still it was not her story to tell and besides, she liked to hear Tyler talk when inspired.

Ty turned back to the book as Fiyori and Bee expressed interest. "Nah, not interruptin' much, just killin' time." His finger reached down to trace across the pages, searching for the passage he'd just been reading. His eyes narrowed as he scanned through the words. The text was an older anthology piece on Eastern religion and philosophy, covering a range of topics, but the Taoism section was what held his interest. The particular article quoted in this passage was on the rhetorical impact of Taoism, and was dated somewhere in the sixties.

He looked back up as he found the words. "The whole thing's on Eastern philosophy. The part I'm lookin' for is on Taoism though, I think it's got some interesting ideas. Like, this here," he noted, his voice dropping as he recited the passage, "Root out your preachers, discard your teachers, and the people will benefit a hundredfold." He tapped the page thoughtfully. "I've seen this one a lot in other stuff I've read, comes out of a book called the Laozi. In the whole thing," he said, making a rounded gesture with his hands,"it's a lot more interestin', since it's a passage about kinda..."

His forehead wrinkled as he searched for the words. "Ending the whole idea of doing good shit for appearances, I guess?" He gave a shrug and settled back against the chair, away from the book. "I'm just gettin' started on it, really. Lots of perspective and historical conflict to sort through. It reminds me of some of those stories I grew up with, though."

Taoism, huh. Ty dropped his voice, and recited a certain passage. Apparently from a book called Laozi. He called it an idea of discarding the act of doing stuff for appearance, or in other words - an act that simply serves to impress others.

Fiyori began nibbling on her nails a bit, vacantly looking at the text Ty was just reading from. It was an interesting way to interpret this passage. She could see why Ty in particular was drawing the conclusion he did. Even reminded him of the stories he heard as a kid, he said. More or less.

She heard a similar saying before, though. A Zen saying, if she recalled correctly. 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.' Seemed a bit extreme, but she figured Zen monks weren't Japanese Vikings. The road was meant to be the path to enlightenment, and the Buddha was some kind of stand-in for a great teacher you'd follow. Or some other concept of the perfect, the goal of this path, yeah?

Yet whatever this symbolic Buddha was, it was wrong. Plain and simple, something that would have kept you from reaching the end of your path. So you had to, symbolically, kill him. Get rid of the false image. It was a difficult concept for Fiyori to grasp at first. Why destroy that which would serve as inspiration and as a role model to you? Yet, eventually, she understood. Understood the implications on the societal level, at least.

Fiyori stopped nibbling, and focused all her attention to Ty and Bee again.

"You know, I think it means that people kinda like to have easy answers. So they look for those people who got these easy answers, and that's always been preachers of any kind. But if people follow those preachers and these guys make a mistake, well, then everybody else follows that mistake. Repeats it, I guess. Just 'cause they were too comfortable with having some kinda teacher or so guide them.

"So yeah, I think that boils down to 'Think for yourself and you'll be better off."

She breathed out slowly. Forgot to do it while talking. Tricky thing.

[Georgia Lee Day, starting pregame]

A lot of people underestimated the importance of Junior year. People thought that as long as you kept your head above water academically, you'd be fine. Some considered it a "social year". At least once a week, people with new accounts and inconsistent punctuation would ask on Georgia Lee's Ivy League Entrance Prep forums how to get things together, Senior year, after not taking things seriously the year prior. These queries would be met by a chorus of regretful voices informing the querents that for them it was, realistically, too late. Georgia Lee was one of those voices. She had been a member of those forums since she was a freshman, and she was taking Junior year extremely seriously.

Georgia Lee was a serious girl.

Junior year represented the last complete year's-worth of grades that would go before the admissions board. This was a crucial opportunity to distinguish herself academically. It represented the last full year of classes before letters of recommendation were written, and was a crucial opportunity to establish relationships with teachers, too. Many students left building an extracurricular portfolio until Senior year, but admissions boards saw right through this. Georgia Lee's extracurricular portfolio was already extensive. Finally, this was also the year to prepare for SATs and SAT subject tests, and the importance of these was perhaps the most crucial of all.

She hadn't been blessed with the intelligence or the athleticism of some of her classmates, Georgia Lee knew. She wasn't one of those people to whom life came easy, though she'd ceased to mind that a long time ago. Working hard suited her just fine.

Natural intelligence was a gift, but hard work was an income. Intelligence would only get you so far, and no further. Other students put in half the work she did and got the same grades, but they'd hit a point, perhaps Senior year, perhaps college, where suddenly their natural intelligence wasn't enough to keep up. Where they'd need to work, and they'd never worked. Georgia Lee did nothing but work, and hard work never ceased to be rewarding. Junior year was a year of absolutely critical importance, and Georgia Lee was determined to make it a successful year. She didn't mind that others didn't see how important it was. They would be distracted and be irresponsible and be lazy, and they would sputter out while she would shine.

Other students' laxity didn't bother Georgia Lee, then. Their failing was not her failing, and what success they should find would not diminish her own. All her forums agreed that the key to maintaining academic consistency was to be focusing on your own learning, not on anyone else's, and this was something that Georgia Lee tried very hard at.

That focus though, was currently being tested. Other students' laxity was bothering her. The Beale Library was a quiet study space, as was very clearly designated on a number of posters around the room, many of which she'd helped put up. Not that group work wasn't a legitimate study technique, but what she could hear was a personal conversation. A distracting one. Study conversations, generally speaking, were conducted without the participants pawing at one another. They were breaking her concentration, and in doing, making their failing her failing. This really wouldn't do.

Georgia Lee pushed her chair back and stood, then pushed the chair back under the table. She, at least, would be considerate of her fellow students.

"Excuse me!"

Her voice was quiet, yet perky. There was no need not to be friendly, after all. Just one pupil reminding some others about some basic library etiquette. She gave a little wave as she crossed the distance that separated their two tables. More than enough distance that they could have been having their little talk without disturbing her study.

Her gaze settled on Bernadette.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but this is a study space, and some of us here are actually trying to study. If you'd maybe want to talk with your boyfriend outside, or even just be a little quieter about it... I guess we'd all really appreciate that."

She felt she was being pretty reasonable. Admonishing her peers wasn't the best way to endear herself to them, Georgia Lee knew, but what choice did she have? It was, after all, a very important year.

The face that accompanied the polite reminder did not hold any immediate recognition, so Bernadette could only assume that the girl thought that by default of appearance that she was the most rational of the three sitting there talking about philosophy in a library. It probably had more to do with the fact that she had dared to touch her boyfriend in-

Yeah, best to stop getting prickly about that right now.

She more felt than saw Tyler move his chair back, which would have looked like he was planning to leave. Bernadette, unfortunately, knew better. By the time he had stood she had jumped off the table, one hand around Tyler's forearm securely even as she did her best to ignore the stab of pain at the movement. This student was a total stranger, and knew nothing about the circumstances and likely did not care. Whilst that was perfectly fine, that would not stop him if someone did not intercept before it was too late.

"Yeah, yeah," she replied, scooping up the book that Tyler was so interested in and snapping it shut with a satisfied smile at the noise. "I get it. Don't worry, we'll go."

Quickly she went over to the stack where she had left her bag within sight, running her hand along Tyler's arm until they were simply holding hands once she had retrieved it. "It's been fun Fiyori. We should hang out somewhere we can have an actual conversation about cats and Taoism. Come on Ty, we need to check this out before lunch is over." Bernadette felt like the dirty look she threw Georgia Lee over Fiyori's shoulder was not quite necessary, but it was not half as bad as whatever her boyfriend had been about to do. After all, she had extensive experience in that.

Ty felt the hair on the back of his neck bristling as their conversation was interrupted. He didn't know who this asshole was, or where she got off lecturing them about noise when she was being more loud an irritating than the three of them combined, but he wasn't about to take any of her shit. There was a low rumble in his throat as his palms met the table, sliding his chair back so he could stand up to tear into her.

He got off one twitching look before he felt Bee tugging at his arm, trying to pull him away and lead them out from the confrontation with a few sharp words of her own. She was urging him to let her take shotgun and get out before he did something stupid. Knew him too damn well. There was something deep in his gut that wanted so badly to just dead weight her and stand his ground and give the intrusive girl both barrels. She'd manage to hit a whole slew of buttons with her outburst. The condescension and intrusion came first and foremost, but he didn't like the way she singled out Bee for some damn reason, and he sure as hell didn't like this "we" bullshit, like anybody else in the mostly empty library gave damn about what anyone else did. There was this whole air of importance and dismissal that really riled him up, and for just a second he didn't want anything more than to rip it apart and show her just what the fuck "loud" was.

Warm air forced its way through his nose as he breathed to gain some composure, following along at Bee's lead. He wasn't that boy anymore. He didn't have to give into those urges. He was a man, and he was going to act like it, no matter how much it fueled the fire inside him and made him want release all the more. Disengaging before he flew off the handle was the smart thing to do, and he was glad she was around to make him do it.

Ty didn't even look at the girl as Bee pulled him out of the library. He tried not to acknowledge her at all, but he couldn't help giving one small concession to his anger, grunting loud enough to carry back through the stacks as they made their exit.

"Fuckin' hypocrite."

((Ty Yazzie Continued In Pool Slingshot))

Wow, not sure whether to call that bold or dumb as fuck. Fiyori eyed the girl that interrupted them but her attention quickly went back to Bee and Ty, who - what an incredible surprise - was not particularly amused.

Fiyori raised an eyebrow as Ty jumped up. An innocent bystander might guess he planned to leave, but Fiyori did knew Ty a bit longer. Besides, she sat right next to him. The slightly increased pressure of his palms as they touched the material of the wood or even how quickly he rose up.

However, Ty was not that kinda person anymore. Not the guy who tears through his fellow students 'cause they got no manners. Bee took a gentle hold of Ty, grabbed her own belongings and made her way to the exit with him. Her tone was pretty friendly. Probably because she actually directed her good-bye at Fiyori. If she were to make an educated guess, though, Fiyori'd say that Bee was kinda pissed too.

Fiyori raised her hand and gave the pair a short wave. She wasn't sure but she could make out Ty cursing.

After her friends left, Fiyori turned her attention back to the girl that was currently being fuckhead of the hour. There were some good ways to identify those assholes who thought they were better than everyone else. Hearing them say such incredibly arrogant bullshit was a very good one.

"Yo, what's your name?"